


Genesis

by SomeoneImSure



Series: Old Versions of T0RN [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Cussing, F/M, Redux of Genesis, Transfan Turned Transformer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6586726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeoneImSure/pseuds/SomeoneImSure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU] Dying transfan Mercy Ferris is more than ready to move on to the next life after saving her sister from a car crash. But while stuck in limbo, an AI tells her that her homeworld is in danger of being taken over by Decepticons, and that they need people like her to become a new generation of Earth's defenders. Too bad it was partially a lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite of an older story I wrote.

_There was a deep pain in her back, all down the length of her spine. All her limbs felt strange, like her arms had been made of cotton fluff instead of bone and sinew and her legs had fallen off though the rest of her body was still acting like they were there. She had never felt so exhausted and lifeless. She was lying down on something cold and wet, a sea of mottled grey shapes in a world drowning in the rain. A dark fog was wrapped around her mind, dragging her deeper into the dark. She couldn't bring herself to resist. Not even the sound of someone else screaming and crying and calling her name couldn't stop her from fading. Her brain could no longer focus on the world of the living. All that mattered was darkness._

Mercy simply appeared seated at a table in a coffee shop where mosaics made up everything; the floor, the walls, the tables and the chairs. Even the windows and the world outside were mosaics, with every little colorful tile moving as if the entire piece was an animated picture. If she stared too long at any scene, it would become blurred and indecipherable. Roaring tidal waves, crashing landslides, swirling hurricanes and erupting volcanoes shifted in and out of focus all around her.

Across her table was someone who could have been her twin. The reflection wore the exact same Godzilla tsunami t-shirt that Mercy wore and the same black leather jacket and dark blue jeans. Seeing herself so pristine and pretty made her uneasy and she suddenly had a desire to wake up right now. The reflection smiled which transformed her eyes into dark, laughing blue pools of pain. A shiver went up Mercy's spine.

"What would you do if you had the power to become a Cybertronian?"

"What?" Mercy said intelligently, in disbelief. " _What?_ "

"You've been thinking about this for a while," said her reflection. "You've never answered it satisfactorily, though. So, what _would_ you do if you had the power to become a Cybertronian? Taking this seriously?"

"What would I do?" echoed Mercy. To be honest, her brain had already forgotten the question, still struggling to understand the situation and the reflection which she realized she had no control over. She was a lucid dreamer, and this was the first time she had no idea what was going on in her dream. "I think I… I would rewrite the IDW series."

"That's not what I asked," said her reflection, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Mercy recognized the sound for whenever she thought someone was stupid or avoiding the question she'd just asked. She was shocked to hear it and was immediately offended. "Well, what did you expect?" she asked, ticked. "Give me a break! I'm still trying to figure out what is happening."

"You'll figure that out soon enough," said her reflection quietly. "You're stubborn enough for it."

Mercy blinked in confusion. "How would you know that? Who are you?"

"I'm you."

Mercy voice turned cold in anger. "I would know if you were me and, though you might look like and act like me, you can't be me. I'm me. I'm the only version of me in my dreams; I'm not looking out through _your_ eyes, after all."

Her reflection frowned. "Listen, you don't know what's going on. You'll figure it out when the simulation starts, but for now just talk."

Mercy could recognize her own voice when she became serious, and she was rarely ever that serious. She became quiet.

"Okay... I would rewrite the IDW series," she continued, forcing herself to mentally relax so she could better articulate a response, "which basically amounts to me doing everything in my power to prevent what I know is going to happen from happening. Essentially, I would be creating an Author's Universe."

Over the last three years, Mercy had tried to do it over and again, with various results. She had never been particularly impressed with her own work, and she was constantly reminded simply by looking online that there were others who would be much better at the task than she would be, so any effort she made to try it seemed like a waste. She researched whatever she could and tried finding as many Self-Insert stories - or just original characters who the same backstory as someone from her world being inserted into another - as she could in order to get a better idea of what a good SI story would look like. The results were mixed and inconclusive.

 _If my sister was writing SI stories, she wouldn't have this problem,_ she thought, her enthusiasm quieting in light of that thought. _But she doesn't even want to do it and never will. It's nonsense._

"How would you do that?" said her reflection.

Mercy paused, considering. She had no idea how to answer this. "I need to speak in order to help me get my thoughts in order," she told her reflection who nodded in understanding.

"I've analyzed the two different writers for the comics and it's obvious to me that they have very different ideas of how things should be done. One was convinced that there needed to be a battle in every chapter or else he'd lose his audience. The other seemed to think that character development and 'realism' would win him an audience, even though it really had the effect of creating interchangeable characters with the exact same senses of humor. Personally, I think the answer is neither; realism is far more complicated than snarky humor and the audience isn't as absorbed into the battle than they are the characters, especially if a large portion of that audience is female." She took a breath to gather her thoughts.

"When considering the roots of Transformers, you have to understand that Generation One set a precedent for what transformer universes and stories should be focused on. Even though it was trash, it created a world where a stereotypical symbol of good would combat a stereotypical symbol of evil. Sure, it was really intended to sell toys, but you can't forget what it accomplished. Throwing the basic concept of the show out the window is just trampling on what made Transformers unique and hilarious as a cartoon. A good homage to it would be to try and replicate that feel but… make it more… ah, realistic? Transformers Prime is a good example of doing it right."

"Are you saying that you'd turn the universe into Transformers Prime?" Her reflection sounded alarmed.

"No, I'm just speaking my mind and trying to get my thoughts in order," Mercy said. "I honestly cannot understand why IDW is so popular."

"Yes... your dislike of it has nothing to do with the fact that they put your favorite character in jail."

Mercy suddenly turned serious. "I've studied psychology for years. There are definite aesthetic signs that a personality type is one particular way. Why would Prowl wear Police attire if he does not believe in some manner of justice or uphold the law in some way? It makes no sense why he should continue to sport that paintjob and yet do things contrary to it. Is it just nostalgia? Now _that_ is illogical, and his entire character is based on _logic_ and _reason_."

Her reflection shook her head and had a patronizing smile on her face. This version of herself, Mercy realized, had no interest or love of transformers. She had not grown up with them like Mercy had nor was as fanatically devoted to it. Her reflection said, "That still doesn't answer the question of what you would _do_. There has to be something you've always wanted to do as a Cybertronian you couldn't do as a human."

"...Transform?" Mercy gave her reflection a bemused look. "What exactly can a Cybertronian do that I can't do and there's your answer. They have a better memory than I can possibly hope to have and are stronger and smarter than I can hope to be. It doesn't really matter to speculate or hope because they aren't real."

Mercy shifted in her chair. She looked down at the mosaic dancing across the surface of the table. The mosaic depicted a dragon and a Cybertronian, with four other monsters on either side of the dragon, each with weapons bristling all over their form, some with shoulder canons and others with drills for hands or faces that could split into four jaws. The red and brown Cybertronian faced off against the five monsters, a great, wide blue sword raised overhead, sweeping downward and glowing with power. When she squinted through the strange eerie light, she could make out a glyph in the blood channel of the blade which sent a shiver through her whole body, but when she looked away she had completely forgotten what it had said.

"Humor me."

Her reflection glanced down at the coffee table and Mercy absentmindedly followed her gaze. The entire mosaic had transformed to an image of dark gray, with a massive hole in the center which framed a world so green Mercy thought it might have been a glimpse into Heaven or the Garden of Eden before sin tainted it, but the mech standing in the middle of the image chased that thought away quicker than a cat can chase away a rabbit. The Cybertronian was pure black except for the bright red flames that engulfed it's entire body, covering its doorwings and chevron in an eerie dark glow. Bright red optics stared out over a grill facemask, malice and laughter dancing in their glowing depths as he looked over his shoulder at her. Mercy felt chilled to the bone. Then it turned away from her and stepped out into the mess of green, and before long the entire forest was coated in flames and smoke, turning the entire mosaic into a flat expanse of rolling smoke.

"Fine," she said to the mosaic. "Hypothetically speaking... What would anyone do if they suddenly became a cat? Would they give in to the instincts of a cat or would the man still be a man, except in the skin of a cat? Would he lick himself all day or would he try to figure out a way to become human again? We can never know, that is why books and movies are made trying to answer that question for us... but in a way that we think is entertaining. Asking that question would be like asking George Washington what if he became president today instead of all those years ago. No one can rightfully say.

"Each and every one of us who dream of being a transformer think that only the best can come of it, since all we see is the green grass on that side of the fence. What we don't know if all the bad stuff that can come with it. We have no clue as to how the physiology of a Cybertronian works. For all we know, everyone has a valve and a spike, or they might not have any reproductive or... recreational equipment that is compatible to our bodies. They could have litters instead of one sparkling! We don't know! It's an unanswerable question."

Mercy finally tore her gaze away from the mosaic as it turned into the ocean. In the dark depths, she could see the twin reddish-brown optics of some kind of monster rising up out of the water. It was black and white with a blue chevron and sleek, pointy doorwings. It rose slowly, like a predator stalking prey, and reminded her too much of a far more terrifying real-life Godzilla.

Her reflection was staring down at a coffee cup filled with mocha-colored liquid that tasted like orange juice without the pulp. "But there's a reason you want to do that, isn't there? A goal you'd try to obtain?"

Mercy nodded. "Of course. I would want to end the war. Who wouldn't?" She sucked in a breath. "Choosing neutrality is simply out of the question; the war is going to be won or lost no matter which side you're on so might as well choose the side that aligns with your beliefs or the one that won't screw you over when everything settles down. Choosing either the Autobots or Decepticons would only get me emotionally invested in whichever side I end up on if not outright killed, which is out of the questions since my goal would be to end the war. I can't very well do that as someone's button pusher or punching bag. No, the only solution to the War Problem is by pulling the strings." _Something which my sister was much better at doing than I._

"In essance, my goal is to become a threat, a threat so large and terrifying that the Autobots and Decepticons would have no choice to unite against me in order to take me down. I would force them to realize how far each of them has gone contrary to their initial philosophies and force them to confront that fact. I would do this by killing the one thing they both have in common; commoners."

"I would kill and slaughter, I would fight and destroy, and I would force them to built walls around themselves in order to defend themselves against me. I would never end my campaign of terror and destruction until the Autobots and Decepticons of the first generation had died and the war had ended. I would never send them my surrender and never tell them that it was now safe beyond their walls. I would simply pass on beyond their reach, beyond their knowledge, so that for generations they must live together in fear of me long after I am dead." She paused. "That is how I would end the war."

"That's cold," said her reflection with a frown. "What if they surrendered to you? Would you kill them?"

Mercy shrugged. "I don't know. There are many variables I can never account for and I have no intention of thinking of them now since they are currently irrelevant. I answered your question."

"You did," her reflection said, dissatisfied. "Which only leaves one question."

"What?"

"Are you the hero the Terrans have been looking for?"

The mosaic underneath her shattered into a hundred pieces and scattered to the four corners of the Earth and she was falling through total darkness. Mercy felt her whole body suddenly grow heavier, like she was slowly being wrapped in hundreds of pounds of body armor. Her limbs felt exhausted and it was a great effort to move them. She was looking up at the ceiling of the coffee shop, which remained intact despite the floor having scattered. The dancing little glass pieces were transforming into a lifelike image of a Praxian kneeling on a metal floor glowing with golden light. Standing over the mech was a giant of a mech carrying a blue blade, the same one the red and brown Cybertronian had raised against the five monsters. As clear as day, in the channel of the blade was a glyph and a name that sent a shiver through her whole body.

Then, suddenly, she was lying on a medical berth in a medbay.

It took effort to move. Her entire body still felt like it was covered in weights, but what was even more astounding was that she felt her bones and muscles had been reorganized inside of her body. She knew if she moved she could lift herself easily, but the problem was how to move. It was like she was a tree trying to move a leg she didn't have before; her entire body reacted differently to the commands her brain impulses sent throughout her body. She was a shaking, spazing uncontrollable mess. Then she forced herself to still.

All around her, the world was cold and dark. Red lights blinked at her from a console nearby and more blue lights created a circular pattern over the cold, metal berth she had woken up on, flat on her back. She looked around the room, moving only her optics, taking in the other red circles on the ceiling, evenly spaced apart and two on her right and two on her left, though parts of the circles were blocked by a rounded metal scanner in the middle of them. The only circle of lights she could see clearly was the one right over her head.

The moment of stillness was enough for her entire body to recalibrate. When she tried to move, she found it was almost like she was back in her old body, except her skin felt wrong. The sound of metal sliding over metal and clicking together filled the room as she moved. She moved a hand – "servo" she quickly corrected herself – in front her face and the smooth, polished metal of her vambrace reflected her rupee-shaped optic perfectly.

Mercy felt sick. Everything in her head and body was telling her that something was seriously wrong with... _everything_. She wasn't just dreaming all of this was happening. She stared at the room and quietly absorbed the sights. It was a small medical bay, with little room in between the medical berths for the staff to work on them. There were still, grey bodies on the other four berths, two on one side of her own berth and two on the other, with trays in between that held everything except medical equipment.

She didn't need to stand up and find a mirror to know the truth. She was a transformer. It was shocking, sure, but Mercy's mind was going one hundred miles per hour and wasn't about to stop to let that little emotion sink in. She had to still be dreaming. She searched the very real looking world around her and paused as she took in the sight of the dagger. The blade's surface wasn't reflective and it glowed a faint blue light that only brightened when she picked up the blade. A glyph was embossed into the blood channel, and she recognized it but chose to ignore it. She swiped the blade across the tip of her finger. Her brain fizzled as (presumably) pain receptors were triggered, but the ghost sensation of pain felt more like a memory rather than real pain.

Why?

Sucking on the injured digit, Mercy turned her attention to the wider world waiting outside the door. The door had a swirl pattern, the lines were a sharp, jagged pattern that went from tip to base. As she got close, the door opened. It reminded her of a mouth, with warped but sharp serrated teeth. Before she got two footsteps closer, the door shut in her face.

She was surprised. How was anyone supposed to walk through this door? When she backed up and walked back forward again, triggering the sensor, it opened and then shut again. She felt like this was some kind of puzzle she was supposed to solve, or a test of some sort, but no matter how many times she tried, it wouldn't stay open long enough for her to walk through.

It made no sense.

She would have to make a jump through it. It was the only solution she could think of that didn't require too much thought and since she wanted to leave behind the tiresome and boring looking medbay to find out what lay on the other side, it was the only solution she cared about. She lined up and had to shove a berth aside, glimpsing the face of the mech on it.

She stopped in shock and examined more the body closely, a growing sense of horror threatening to break through her thought processes. She recognized the curve of that faceplate. It was strange to see such an imperfect human face on what was usually drawn as idealistically perfect characters, but there she was. A face that was exactly like her sister's. She leaned back, her gaze scoring the Seeker's body for wounds - anything that might give her a clue as to how the femme died. The chestplate had been clinically removed to reveal the mechanics underneath, the fuel pump exposed but the laser core was gone. The sight made her nauseas. In her opinion, the only reason why anyone's internals should be exposed is because they were on the operating table, and afterwards they should be sealed up.

Remembering her current mission, she started moving the berth out of the way again, but this time much more mindful of the corpse on it. She wasn't sure whether that really was her sister on the berth, but it was better to be safe than sorry. When she had enough running space, she lined herself up and made a feinted run at the door, testing its reaction time. It reacted slowly, and she adjusted her plans. Then, she made a real run at the door and braked a little at the end, turned and jumped sideways through the door, her shoulder hitting the floor as she rolled to her pedes. She felt like she had done it millions of times before, and she landed in a dramatic pose. She was posed in the middle of a silver hallway that curved like a tunnel through… darkness.

There were gaps in the metal hallways where a rock wall should have been but instead there was nothing but darkness and the occasional metal cord hanging down from nothingness. She felt like if she stepped between the gap, she would fall forever. Her tanks threatened to claw into her throat at the thought of falling through darkness _again_ and she forced her atteion to turn back to the hallways, the structure reminding her of a serpentine skeletal structure. Blue bulbs in the ceiling bathed the silver metal in a soft light.

The rooms here were boring and unremarkable. Most were small square rooms that reminded her of closets, with dust and dirt scattered around on the floor, holes punched into the walls where cables dangled out of, and small pieces of what might have been furniture laying scattered around. There wasn't anything of interest until she reached the last room. A massive glass wall on the other side of the room allowed natural light in from the outside world, a greenish-yellow light that was filtered through a lot of clear water and framed a black throne in a mostly bare room. Consoles lined the bottom of the glass, lights on the surface burning brightly in the semi-dark.

It was the only room with any character. She backed up and jumped through, ending in a crouch behind the throne. She noted the emptiness of the place and the dead, suffocating silence. She checked over everything for a main console and found it on the armrest of the throne. Sitting down in the seat, she was surprised to realize that she was really small, a fourteen foot tall mech in a throne made for a thirty-five foot monster.

She turned her attention to the computer. The dialogue and commands were written in a language that reminded her Chinese or Japanese but not at the same time, more alien and simple. After a moment, she realized she could understand it. There were only one thing she could interact with, a button that would awaken some kind of AI on the computer. She pressed it.

_Accepting Artificial Intelligence Interface…_

_Reprogramming…_

In a flicker of light, another Praxian appeared in the room with her. It towered over her, it's armor a very dark gray, almost black, with a lighter colored face. A blood red Autobot symbol dominated his grill, exactly where her golden one was on her own body. Unlike her, its optics were pure dark blue, blank and soulless. Looking into those optics were like looking into two dark lakes of water that had no water currents or any signs of life. She shifted uncomfortably under its gaze, and it took a long moment to speak.

"Hello," it said, its mouth fritzing out with its words before stabilizing, "I am designated your Guardian and Mentor. Thank you for… 'activating' me."


	2. Lesson 1

The cold airy atmosphere of the dark underwater base contrast with the flashing light beneath Mercy’s fingertips on the armrest of the throne. The AI stared at her quietly, letting the silence sink in. 

_ Analyzing threat… Analyzing threat… Threat analysis in progress… _

Mercy sat up in the throne, her doorwings spreading behind her to make her seem larger in the massive throne. “And what exactly are you supposed to be?”

“I am an Artificial Intelligence program,” it said. “I am designated your Guardian and Mentor.”

“You said that already,” Mercy said, her words brisk. She wanted answers and this AI was already getting on her nerves. “Who commands this ship? Where are the crew?”

“I am designated your Guardian and Mentor,” it said, pausing. “There are no other lifeforms present.”

“I can see that!” she snapped. “Where are the others? What happened to the crew?” 

“I am not programmed to respond to questions that I do not have answers for.”

Mercy paused, looking around at the computer consoles. “What about the ship’s logs?”

The AI hestitated. “There may be some explanation in the ship’s logs.”

She snorted. “Then let me access the ship’s logs so I can figure it out for myself.”

“I am not programmed to allow that.”

Mercy felt a headache coming on. “Is there  _ anything _ you actually have an answer for!?”

The AI stared blankly at her. Mercy sat very still, refusing to look away from the soulless optics that  seemed to peer into her very soul. “Linguistic and educational programming have already been downloaded to your databanks. You will be able to understand the computer systems once that programming has finished integrating into your systems.”

“I am not a Cybertronian!” Mercy growled. “I will not be treated like one.”

“You are Terran.”

She paused. Mercy knew that Earth was sometimes called Terra in science fiction, so that meant that anything inhabiting Terra, like Earthlings, were called Terrans. And the only Terrans she knew of were humans. “Yes, I am an organic!”

“That statement is incorrect.”

“Don’t tell me what is correct or incorrect in  _ my _ dream!”

The AI stepped up to the throne and towered over her. “You are no longer capable of ‘dreams’.”

It said it such finality that Mercy believed it for a moment, a spike of terror piercing her spark before she rejected that idea. “I am an organic. A human.  _ Of course _ I am capable of dreams.” 

“Correction; you  _ were _ human.”

Mercy flinched, remembering the conversation she had with her the self not too long ago. “I-I… It…” She searched for words, unable to look at the holomech. “How do you expect me to take your word for it?”

“It is the only logical conclusion.”

The ex-human slowly shook her helm. “You can’t see it from my perspective, Artificial Intelligence.” She sat back in the chair to gather her thoughts before giving it a pensive look. “Why am I here?”

“You were brought here during the conversion process after decomposition began to take over your organic body.” 

“Okay,” she said, an uneasy calm settled over her. “Why?”

“It was necessary to preserve your spark and to prolong your life while the conversion process replaced your organic material with the metallic equivalent. Your spark was severely damaged during the conversion process, however, and extra measures had to be put in place to ensure your full recovery.”

Mercy wasn’t looking at the AI. “And what are these extra measures?”

“In order to preserve your life, I had to take direct involvement in your recovery.” 

“What if I didn’t want my life to be preserved?”

“I am not programmed to respond to questions that I do not have answers for.”

Her optics narrowed into slits. “Fine. Why did you bring me here?”

“You were brought here because it was more secure and safer than your previous location.”

“And where is here?”

“I am not programmed to respond to questions that I do not have answers for.”

“Great,” she said, her optics drifting over its form. “Why do you look like Prowl?”

“I am programmed to be your Guardian and Mentor, and any resemblance to anything you might perceive as either a Guardian or a Mentor is intentional.”

“And your face… looks remarkably familiar. Like someone I used to know a long time ago…”

“Any resemblance to a past relative of your species is intentional.”

Mercy felt something inside her grow cold. “You’re just a boatload of information, aren’t you?” she said, avoiding looking at its face. 

“I am designated your Guardian and Mentor. I have been tasked with ensuring your survival and to monitor it closely. Are all of your programs integrating properly into your processors?”

“I would need a list of programs that are supposed to be integrating into my processors to know that, now wouldn’t I?” Mercy stood up, staring up at the slightly taller holomech. “You  _ do _ have a list, don’t you?”

“I am not programmed to respond to questions that I do not have answers for.”

“Just had to put the cherry on top, didn’t you?” Mercy stared at the AI, forcing herself to stare into that unnerving face. “Who created you?”

“I have existed since the very dawn of creation. I have no creator.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “Primus is the creator of all things.”

“If Primus exists, then the answer would most likely be ‘yes’.”

Mercy relaxed her shoulders and doorwings. “Do you have something against Primus?”

“I am programmed to not discuss the matters of religion or religious beliefs with anyone.” 

The transfan looked away from the AI for a moment, gathering her thoughts and trying to figure out what she hadn’t asked the AI that might have been important. “What do you want from me?”

“I do not want anything from you. I am here to give you training and to check your progress with integrating programs.”

“How will you do that?”

“I will run a series of simulations and tests to determine whether your programs are properly integrating with your systems. To start, I will begin a history lesson and then move on to biology. You will begin remembering things you have never heard of before; this means that the programs are integrating properly into your systems and are being recognized properly by your main processing unit. Shall we begin?”

“Might as well,” she said, shrugging. “There’s nothing else to do.”

“Then you will follow me.”

Mercy didn’t like being backed into a corner and that is exactly what she felt like had just happened. She could choose not to follow the AI to wherever it wanted to take her or she could follow it and try to figure out what it’s purpose was. Following it was the only way to get those answers, and she had a history of studying people so she should be able to figure the mech out. 

The holomech had already flickered out of existence when she finally hauled herself off the throne but, when she stepped into the hallway, it was nowhere to be found. The precious moments she had used to jump through the doors had been enough time for the mech to disappear. Mercy knew she was going to have to find some way to keep these doors open if she was going to be getting anywhere fast in the future. 

“Hello?” 

The entire place was like a maze, with no distinguishing features to tell her if she was returning to the throne room or the not-quite-a-medbay she had woken up in or if she was going someplace new. It would probably take a while to figure the whole place out, time that she currently didn’t know if she had. She went in the direction she hadn’t come from, and found herself looking through all the doors along the way. 

Only one door was different from all the others. It was made of squares and reminded her of the Autobot symbol, though it was the same bluish-purple as the rest of the base. Beyond it was a large white room with a high ceiling and identical walls that made it impossible to identify the door once she had stepped inside. And when she stepped inside, The Mentor appeared.

“This is a simulation,” it began, gesturing to the room. “I will playback a selection of historical records and simulations of times long past. You may recognize some of these events.”

Mercy nodded, thinking of George Washington’s presidency or the Black Plague. “Okay.”

The white holodeck changed. A world of dirt and soil stretched out in all directions, with a black and starry sky featuring clearly both the bright sun and the full moon. This was a world without any atmosphere, nothing that could give the day its clouds or its light blue color.

“Many millions of years ago, this planet was a barren wasteland populated by creatures humankind call ‘will-o-wisps’. These balls of lights were lost,  _ stranded”—  _ It spoke the word with a sort of breathlessness and tightened a fist, causing her to glance thoughtfully at it. —“sparks that was scattered across the universe years before.” 

In the barren wasteland, a floating white ball of pure energy floated up to her. When she reached out to touch it, it passed harmlessly through her armor and continued on its predestined path through space. More balls of light and energy fluttered around it, mindlessly floating through the planet’s surface while swerving away from each other or circling each other. It looked like miniature blue, green and yellow suns were covering the entire surface of the planet.

“From the dark reaches of space, three Primes appeared and brought with them a monster and his mindless, sparkless army.”

A red and purple giant descended from the sky, joined by a silver giant that came up to his hip and a brass amalgamation of parts and pieces that moved as if alive, sometimes coalescing into a solid, seamless Cybertronian form before transforming into something else. A fourth titan, black with a red trim, was dragged along in chains behind them, a gag around his mouth and his two doorwings locked in stasis cuffs. The silver titan had the chains wrapped around his arms and a long glowing blue broadsword in his servo, eager to slice the thing across the black mech’s neck but restraining himself, his whole body tense.

Then, the world around her began changing, rapidly fast forwarding through time. 

“They are called the Trinity, and they created the world’s atmosphere using technology long forgotten by Terrans but which is currently safely stored in databases at the Citadel. At the time they finished, there was still no organic life on the planet, neither fauna or flora.”

The sky was a familiar sunny blue and the sun was a bright yellow, while the rest of the world remained unnaturally barren. A hollow, silver column, wide and short, began appearing in the center of the world-wide desert as time sped forward. Concrete covered the floor of the entire compound, and cells and cages lined the inside walls. They put the black mech in a massive cell with no berth at the back of the compound.

“The monster’s army were reprocessed into civilians. The first ten were known as the Omnibots.”

The giant purple and red Prime disassembled into his five components, one of which began moving the free floating sparks into the Vehicon bodies. The stiff and still Vehicon drones, who had shown no sign of personalities, suddenly began moving with life and curiosity. The nine of the ten moved out of the compound and looked over the rest of the world with curiosity and interest and, with the brass Prime’s guidance, they began building the basis for their new civilization. Hundreds of other Vehicons followed suit and soon cities were built and flora began to grow on the planet.

“The names of the Trinity have been forgotten in history. All that is known of them is that one of the Trinity is to give life, one of the Trinity to give change, and one of the Trinity to give protection.”

The scene focused on a lonely Vehicon following the silver Prime in curiosity and, regardless of the shooing motions that the Prime directed at him, he stayed behind and spoke with the silver Prime in interested. One day, the brass Prime returned from giving the gift of change to the Vehicons, allowing them to change their forms and become more diverse and visibly distinct from each other, and he noticed the Vehicon following the Protector around. 

“Unlike all the other Vehicons, this one, a twin, remained behind and became interested in the Primes as more than just idols and mentor figures. He learned many things form them; how to use a sword, how to transform into the most fantastic of things, and how to combine with other Vehicons to form a gestalt. Overtime, the Vehicon’s appearance began to change.”

The Vehicon turned gradually into a black and white Praxian model and struck a remarkable resemblance to the black mech in the largest of prison cells, but with a blue chevron on its forehead and a vent in the center of the blue V. Mercy touched her own chevron, recognizing the striking similiarties.

“His name was Rhythm — and he was your predecessor.”

Mercy nodded, recognizing the statement as fact. The Mentor continued.

“His brother, the first born of the monster, was called Ruination, and he began to develop a fascination with the Primes, just as Rhythm had before. But he was jealous of the attention they gave Rhythm, and that jealousy caused his curiosity to turn elsewhere.”

A rusty-red mech, large and tall, stood before the prisoner on the other side of the cell and seemed to be comfortable there, calmly talking to the mech on the other side and listening to his responses. The silver Prime showed up and shooed him away, obviously angry. Mercy understood what was happening in Ruination’s mind, how he percieved this shooing away as being pushed away. It only would serve to make Ruination angry and cause him to rebel more.

“He fell prey to the fallen one’s treachery, and the prisoner escaped.”

The black mech ignored the young mech the moment he was free and tore through the compound, destroying everything in its wake. His whole body seemed to catch fire for no reason, smoke and sparks billowing from his dark form, transforming him into a fiery inferno. He focused his firepower on a wall, obliterating the entire western side of the compound. He emerged from the damaged wall of the compound, hesitating on the edge and savoring the fresh air of freedom. He ripped off the gag to reveal a shark-tooth laced smile. Mercy absentmindedly touched her teeth, feeling the serrated shark-tooth shape of her own teeth.

“The warrior Prime was quick on his heels.”

The silver Prime was rapidly on the scene, appearing in the gap of the wall and catching sight of the black doorwings as the burning mech began carving a path through the forest. The first largest forest fire began to eat away at the flora and greenery as a blue light cut through the middle of the fire and cut a furrow into the Earth. The black Praxian turned and faced the warrior Prime, burning red optics burning straight into Mercy’s memories.

“The battle ended when the Earth swallowed them both whole.”

The silver Prime stabbed his blade into the Earth, rupturing the planet’s crusts and breaking the world. Pangaea became continents before Mercy’s very optics — and Rhythm stood in the gap in the compounds wall, watching in horror as watery waves gushed from the planet’s core and swallowed the black Praxian and silver Prime whole. The spot of water above where they disappeared bubbled and hissed before settling.

“Rhythm searched the waters long and hard for many solar cycles but never found any bodies. When he returned, he was a stranger in a strange land, thought long dead even by his own brothers. The other two members of the Trinity were nowhere to be found, having disappeared shortly after the Omnibots rose to power. Ruination had began a scientific study into the art of energy absorption, creating the first wind-powered generator.”

The world of amazing constructions and flora gave way to an eternally cold winter as ice built up around the old Cybertronian homes and forced the mecha to either abandon their homes or look for alternative sources of energy. This side of the world rarely saw the sun during certain times of the year, and solar energy was their first and main source of energy. When Ruination came out with his wind-powered generator, it was a welcome change. Rhythm had also grown in popularity, becoming a teacher of self-defense styles and sharing his mastery of the sword with the next generation. He was elected the Secretary of Defense and everyone listened to him whenever he had something to say about some issue or another. So it was Rhythm and Ruination standing together on a podium overlooking the wide main street of the Vehicon City-State, with the black and white congratulating the rusty red mech for his accomplishment. 

“Galvanized by his success, Ruination began working on a new and far more advanced technology; the energy absorption shield generator. But he kept the technology a secret and shared it only amongst his four closest friends. However, there was an oversight in the EAS field’s creation. Since he did not share his technology, the other Omnibots could not check it for any flaws, and these flaws became apparent over a long period of time. Time that the five Omnibots spent over seas and away from the city.”

Outside the city, the rest of the world was flourishing under the careful guidance of Calypso, a botanist and biologist with an interest in organic composition and structures. He was an Omnibot and a scientist, and the creator of all organic life on Earth. His current project was the cold-blooded creatures, massive monsters which walked across the Earth, adapting slowly to the changes of the world. Calypso had much success and thousands of different animals were being created every decade. 

“As a result, the city did not become aware of their change until most of the world was destroyed. Calypso, known in this sector as the guardian of the seas and traveller of oceanic waves, realized what was going on and quickly made their way to the City to seek aid from Rhythm. Rhythm asked his twin, Rhyme, and his best friend, Oracle, to help him in the fight against the five errant Omnibots and to stop these five with force. But while Rhyme did not agree that force was necessary, Oracle came up with a plan and Rhythm executed it.”

Rhythm stood with a dull metal sword up against the five monstrous figures that had once been Ruination and his friends. Fire and energy seemed to leak from them at the seams, making them glow with unholy red fire. They were incoherent, their voices turned to growls and roars. Ruination was humongous in his monster form, a beast with a fluted plate on his head and a massive horn that was shaped like a sword and that glowed with yellow energy. 

“What Rhythm didn’t know was that the plan was suicide.”

The four smaller monsters surged towards Rhythm when he charged forward. The mech was overcome, with one Destron lying down in the dirt and turning grey off to the side and the others enraged at the loss as they tore at him. There was a lull in the fighting. Rhythm’s attention drifted to something he could only see out of the corner of his optics. Understanding dawned on his face as his optics locked briefly with someone or somethings that Mercy could not see. Time seemed to stand still as the betrayal registered across Rhythm’s features. Mercy felt helpless and confused as she watched Rhythm summon up the last of his strength in a final attempt to gain the advantage when it was already too late.  

“Then, a miracle happened.”

Mercy felt the phenomenon rather than saw it. Something was headed rapidly for Rhythm, curving through the air before landing amidst the Omnibots. The energy and light surged over the watching bots and knocked them down. When they scrambled back up, Rhyme appeared and stopped at the sight of the Omnibot bodies and Rhythmus Prime’s massive form. Then, Rhythmus Prime surged towards Ruination.

“In the aftermath, it is unclear who won. Omnibot or Destrons.”

There were two bodies on the hill and a lot of smoke. Neither Rhythmus Prime or Ruination would rise up again. Mercy made note of the new word, the singular Omnibot in reference to the Prime and the plural Destrons in reference to the five mad Omnibots.

“Rhyme was furious. He emphasized how the new Trinity were supposed to work together to defeat the enemy - not this. The Matrix of Combination chose him to become the next Prime, and he ruled over the world and the last three Omnibots fairly.” 

_ But after a long while, he turned his attention to the next generation of Omnibots and began making plans for them, plans which one in their number did not like… _

The hologram faded back to a white room and Mercy started in surprise. “Wait, there’s more to it than that.”

“It is good that you recognize that,” said the holomech, “and that is why I am turning my attention to the second part of this lesson.”

“But that part is important!” she said, cross. “You can’t just interrupt a story like that. What about the betrayal?”

“We are moving on to a basic biology lesson. Rhymus Prime created the conversion process which, after millions of years of modification, created you.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you are interrupting a really good story.”

“The spark signature is the basis of life on this planet. This planet is home to—”

“Theresa.” Maybe it was a little petty to force the holomech to mess up a name, but she was a little torqued that it had failed to finish the story when she knew it was important even though she couldn’t exactly remember why. Her memory recall had never been that good.

“What?”

“You might as well give the planet a name.”

“…the planet Theresa, as you call it, is home to nearly one trillion lifeforms, most of which register on Terran sensors as having spark signatures.” 

A holographic image of the modern planet Earth began rotating above them, with the white walls turning into a black and starry night. Yellow, green and blue lights flickered across the entire surface of the planet, like a world wide city with all the lights on.

“The Vehicons still required sparks. Without sparks, they are susceptible to being controlled by simple radio waves and forced to fight against sentient lifeforms. Unfortunately, sparks that were so common during the reign of the Trinity were absorbed by the organic lifeforms on this planet, forcing Calypso and Rhymus Prime to find a new conversion process—”

Mercy stared at him. “Please, don’t tell me…” 

“—in order to convert those spark signatures into fully functioning sparks for the Vehicons to use.”

She took a deep breath and walked a few steps away from the Mentor, covering her face with her hands to hide her expression. Or to metaphorically catch the emotion before it could flicker across her face. She wasn’t exactly sure. “And you used this conversion process on me.”

“The conversion process only starts after the organic shell has reached the end of their life expectancy or when the organic shell has been injured beyond repair.”

Mercy breathed, calming herself. “And which category did I fall under?”

“You fell under both categories. Unfortunately, you were not awake to make the decision to convert for yourself, but since the converter had already attached itself to your spine, we went ahead with the conversion process anyway.”

“Okay.” Mercy reminded herself that she was still alive and still breathing, even though the details on how were still fuzzy. “We can skip the rest of this lesson. I know where it’s going and I don’t care for it.”

“We cannot. Your biology lesson ends when you have transcanned your first alternate mode.”

“Then let’s get on with it. Show me what I have to do.”

“In order to obtain an alternate mode, you require a transcan of whatever object or fauna that you wish to transform into.” 

“Okay. What does the scan look like?”

The blue outline of a metallic mammoth, detailed down to the folded up endoskeleton of the mech, flickered onto the white wall of the holodeck. 

“Is that scan light supposed to appear, too?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,  _ okay _ .” Mercy took another deep breath, steadying herself. Too much seemed to be happening at once for her fully understand and just trying to keep up with a single train of thought was taxing. She needed a moment to herself, a moment to think about what had happened and about where to go from here. “I guess I’m going fishing.”


	3. Lesson 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you have your exit buddy?"

There were so many things to think about while sitting in the throne on the Observation Deck, waiting for a sizable fish to bite. The AI had given her a lot of information, but it didn’t feel like enough to create a full picture. She knew she might no longer be human, that this might not be a dream, that there might have been an accident that caused her to become converted into a Cybertronian by outside interference, that she might have been converted because her soul gave off a spark signature which something called a converter could turn into a spark for a race of sparkless drones called Vehicons, and that these Vehicons would become Cybertronians upon acquiring the new sparks. 

It was difficult for Mercy to categorize and file the information and visualize the full picture to see its flaws. If her sister was here, she could bounce ideas off her twin and actually be able to get somewhere with her thought processes. Hope Ferris was very detail oriented and good at remembering all the nuances of a situation so she could figure out how they went together - or how they didn’t go together. Mercy had always admired Hope because of it, but now that she was alone, she was forced to use her own wits to get the information together. With her advanced and new cybernetic processor, in theory this was now something she should have found much easier to do, but it seemed that some part of her was still very much an imperfect human. Her memory still had trouble holding on to information. 

Sometimes she wished she had her sister’s memory instead of being an ADHD kid with a lazy eye and a habit of being easily frustrated. Her life would be a whole lot easier and moments like this would be whole lot easier to deal with. She needed discipline. Everything else could be dealt with after she had mastered her personal demons and got herself under control, instead of letting her mind wander at the littlest provocation. Besides, she told herself, she wasn’t the first kid to conquer her ADHD without the use of drugs.

But first thing’s first.

A dark shadow started to move across the surface of the water, blocking out her only source of natural light. She shifted in the throne, looking up at the medium-sized mammal and identifying the creamy and dark grey underbelly of a killer whale. She immediately began looking through her processor to figure out how to activate the transcan. There was central HUB network which allowed her to connect to her abilities in a snap, and one of the glyphs on a metaphysical button was ‘transcan’. She activated it, careful to point her optics at the orca as the blue beam flickered out and through the glass to the creature beyond. It was far away but apparently close enough for her scanners to detect, and a diagram of the animal slowly built up in her mind. In seconds, the scan was over with and her systems began incorporating the new form. Her skin crawled as the program went to work all over her armor, changing her fundamental shape with an almost painful sensation.

She knew that she could not trust the Mentor. The AI was obviously just a program, a tool that someone else was utilizing to run the simulation. Since she had no way of knowing who or what had created that program, whether that might have been a Quintesson or the ‘Destrons’, she could not trust the Mentor. Then again, she couldn’t really trust anything. 

Even sitting here outside of the holodeck was throwing up alarm bells; something was fundamentally wrong about this whole place, like she was in a pocket dimension rather than in the real world. The place was empty of life and signs of life; there were no dead bodies anywhere. Figuring out what happened to the crew was a priority, because whatever happened to them could also happen to her. She needed to look for an escape route, someplace where the crew might have abandoned ship after it crashed or someplace where something might have gotten in. Then, if she found nothing, she needed to start thinking about the possibility that the answers lie outside of the ship. If the crew ejected in escape pods before crash landing, then there should be evidence of Cybertronian life on the surface. 

But first, finding evidence of an entrance and exit on this ship.

When she stood up, the holomech was waiting for her near the door, an imposing figure that stood at twice her height. She paused, realizing for the first time just how small she was. She was more of a minibot than a full sized Cybertronian, but she couldn’t let that get to her. She stood up and raised her wings, letting the AI know that its holodeck didn’t frighten her. The AI looked over her, its thousand yard stare boring into her and making her want to shiver. 

“You have finished incorporating the transcan,” it informed her, as if she didn’t already know. “We can move on to Lesson 2.”

Last time they had talked, Mercy had let her frustrations get the best of her and she was determined not to let that happen again. She studied the mech over again, from its disturbingly familiar face to its black paint job and red chevron. The red Autobot insignia on its chest was just an image, she told herself, and not a representation of the AI’s friendliness.

It continued. “Your transforming capabilities are essential for your combat programming. If you cannot transform, you cannot perform the basics of self-defense.”

She steadied herself with a breath and carefully spoke. “Well, I just scanned my first alternate mode. That has to count for something.”

“Transcanning and transforming are two separate skills. In order to survive on this planet, you must be a master of both.”

If, like it had said, she had started decomposing before the conversion process began, then it begged the question how had she died? She recalled a long street, a rainy day and twin bright headlights coming out of the dark. She shuddered and retreated from the memory, wondering what had made her do it. “Who said I wanted to survive?”

The Mentor’s expression didn’t change as it stared at her for a long tense moment, then it turned and headed towards the door. “I will see you on the holodeck.”

It’s thinking, she realized. What is it thinking about? The question made her hesitate and she watched the holomech disappear without touching the trap door, a door that served no real purpose other than to be an obstacle she had to jump through. And these serpentine hallways, who would design them like this? The intermediate gapes between the supports suggested this was a design feature and the darkness beyond each gap lacked the guts that it suggested at having. Was this place even a crashed ship? What was its purpose if it wasn’t one?

Answers were not forthcoming.

Walking through the doors of the holodeck was like walking into a new world of screaming crowds and golden, flat arena. A Colosseum surrounded her on all sides, replacing the white walls of the holodeck with an alien world she had only seen in comics and cartoons. A wind created from the roar of the crowd stirred the layer of metal filings, like dust in the wind. It was so much more intimidating in person, and so alive. Mercy felt herself growing tenser as the crowd continued to roar and no AI made any appearances to explain what the pit was going on. Her armor fluffed up and spiked out defensively, and images of old battle raced through her mind, telling of the destructive potential of just running into someone at full velocity while transforming. She shuddered at the unexpected images and mentally pushed them aside.

There was a building sound, a low, thrumming growl that reverberated throughout her whole body in a disturbing and uncomfortable way. Somewhere close by, bars shook beneath the weight of an angry monster as it threw itself against them in a vain attempt to get free. The creaking of an iron chain being pulled through a steel wheel and the trembling of iron bars reminded her of the sound a castle might make while raising it’s portcullis, before something twitching and shuffling darted out of the mouth of nearest entryway. A creature, lizard-like, burst out of the shadowed tunnel at the other end of the arena. It had a short, thin body and long legs that whipped around either side of its body, with a short pointy tail that bounced across the ground. Two almond-shaped optics, pale and flickering white, fixated on her with a hungry expression from behind its round, short muzzle. The neck raised over the body at ten feet, while its  legs raised its body over the ground at six feet, a long gel-like tongue, bloated and dripping, dangled between the gap in its front teeth. Its thick claws scrambled across the ground, kicking up metallic dust as it bolted across the arena toward her. It was fast, agile, awkward, and eager to kill. 

Mercy threw herself to the side the same way she jumped through doors, and rolled to a stop, twisting around quickly to refocus on her opponent, who scrambled to find the purchase necessary to turn. She whipped out her knife and leaped past the things head, landing on a foot to turn and leap again, landing squarely on the thing’s body. A blue arc of light came crashing down between the thing’s shoulder blades before she yanked the dirk out and rolled off it and back onto her feet. The creature whipped around, it’s front legs scrambling uncoordinated underneath it as its head snapped in her direction. She switched dirk hands and stepped into the creature’s arm length, throwing herself towards its head to jam her dirk into its throat and neck. It roared, and she felt the sound vibrate through the blade handle, before she twisted the dirk and snapped its neck. It dropped like a sack of bricks at her feet as she stepped away from the twitching, broken body. 

“Mentor?” she asked, turning slightly away from the creature so the Mentor could hear her better. Her voice was steady and firm, and completely alien to her own audios. “Are you  _ trying _ to kill me?”

“ _ You asked me, _ ” said the AI, its voice echoing all around her and throughout the whole arena, making the sounds of the crowd pale in comparison. “ _ Who said you wanted to survive? Well, the answer is  _ you _ did. You did when you defeated those predacons. _ ”

Another two monsters were released, drooling transfluid from the long gel-like tongues which trailed behind it like forgotten leashes. Their pale optics hungrily locked onto their targets and they didn’t hesitate as they skidded across the ground.

“Are you trying to kill me?” she answered it, grimacing at the approaching predacons. “I barely survived the first one.”

“ _ Without your self-defense programming fully integrated as well. Well done.” _

Mercy leaped between the two predacons and rolled quickly to her feet, taking a step back because of her momentum. They couldn’t turn as sharp as they liked and they both doubled back on themselves, snapping at air where her legs were and quickly becoming tangled in each other as they struggled to their feet. It was almost laughable, seeing them struggle over each other in order to get to her. Mercy took the opportunity to glance down at herself, assessing her injuries in a blink before settling into a stance, ready to bounce left or right if either predacons lunged again.

“I have good instincts,” she said evenly. 

The predacon on her left lunged and she bounced left. The predacon on the right immediately directed its attack over the other predacon, stumbling over the predacon and snapping at Mercy. She jumped towards the creature the moment its teeth snapped shut and she hooked an arm around it’s throat behind the jaw, before locking her other arm around its neck and twisting hard. The predacon gave a harsh sound as its neck snapped and it fell limply to the ground. The other predacon clawed at the ground, the limp body trapping it with its weight and forcing it to scramble to get free. Mercy twisted underneath the caught neck and positioned herself closer to the scrambling predacon, before she jumped on its back and neck, forcing its head down. It wiggled wildly underneath her, trying to buck her off, but was severely limited by the weight of two bodies on its limbs. Mercy quickly snapped its neck and moved away from the bodies as three more predacons suddenly dashed out of the shadows. 

“What is the point of this?” she asked.

The AI spoke one cold word which seemed to boom throughout the entire arena, but echo hollowly in her own being. “ _ Assessment. _ ”

She knew it was lying. 

“ _ Your self-defense programming seem to have failed to fully integrate with your ‘instincts’. There is conflict between the two programs. You will have to work on making up that difference if you are to survive on ‘Theresa’.” _

The three predacons where suddenly onto her, distracting her from responding. She jumped over the body of another predacon and took refuge amongst the frozen bodies. She bodily picked up one and tossed it onto the nearest predacon, trapping it beneath the weight and distracting it from outright attacking her. While a predacon was distracted with the movement of the flying corpse, mistaking it for prey, Mercy turned on the last predacon, dodging its snapping velociraptor teeth and stabbing it between the shoulder blades. The stabbed predacon executed an awkward sideways shuffle before it collapsed, flailing its front limbs uselessly and wiggling on the ground. Mercy lunged at the second undamaged predacon and ducked within its head swing, gripping and twisting its neck. She didn’t hear anymore predacons being released to attack, so she turned her attention to finishing off the other predacons. Anything with a twisted neck was only temporarily stunned until the self-repair systems got to work reconnecting the wires she had severed when twisting their necks. To keep them down, she stabbed each of them in their narrow chest and punctured their spark chamber, and made sure their bodies turned an ugly dead grey.  

The sounds of something flapping its wings and flying overhead drew her attention to the skies. Something large and yellow, with a green underbelly, was wheeling overhead, cawing a thunderous sound which seemed to merge with the roar of the crowd to become something else. A white shark with blue limbs marched out of one of the doorways the predacons had appeared from, with a thicker built, giant humanoid blue frog following close behind him. Mercy suspected that two two-head dragons were waiting somewhere else, out of sight, ready to emerge and join the fray.

“Is this what you’re really all about?” she asked as the slow moving frog and shark headed towards her, with the monster-bird flying steadily closer overhead. “Throw as many baddies as you can at me and hope I survive? Or maybe learn something along the way? I thought you said you were my Mentor. Where is the training? In fact, what was all that nonsense about you being my  _ Guardian? _ ”

She remembered the holomech’s face, the familiarity of it. It was really starting to bug her now, but that was a distraction she had to quickly push aside as the bird dove towards her. She threw up a predacon body, and felt the impact of its talons against the limb body, which rippled through her arms and nearly knocked her over. These things were massive compared to her, more than twice her size on average, and with more firepower and strength than she had any hope of achieving.  

“ _ You are aware that transforming is not just a matter of changing your physical appearance, correct? While your alternate mode is useless in this situation due to the lack of a proper medium in which to navigate, your ability to change sizes is still a fundamental aspect of the natural tranformative ability all Cybertronians are gifted with.” _

Mercy was knocked over as another low flying passover by the monster-bird ripped the predacon from her arms and left her vulnerable and scrambling for another shield. The dark blue frog had stopped moving, the turrets on its back leveling in her general direction. The white land shark with limbs moved with a slow, lumbering pace which sudden picked up to a startling degree. “How do I do  _ that _ ?” she asked, exasperated as she positioned the moving shark between her and the frog while staying out of reach of the Terrorcon and dealing with the flying monster-bird that dropped closer. The Mentor did not respond to her; at this crucial moment, it would prove more a distraction than actual help anyway.

The ex-human ducked a swipe from the shark, and shifted to the side, reaching out to grab a passing talon and hold on with all her might. The monster-bird turned in the air reluctantly, coming between Mercy and the frog’s weaponfire. Unfortunately, the frog’s weaponfire missed both bird and Mercy, slamming into the shark’s side as he turned to snap at Mercy, who was yanked forward by the bird adjusting its flight path. Letting go of the talon, she rolled to a stop before throwing herself amongst the bodies to throw another predacon at the frog, briefly distracting it enough to allow the shark to punch its comrade in the face. The two immediately descended into a brawling match and Mercy turned her full attention to the bird.

The yellow and green monster-bird landed amongst the piles of predacon bodies, talons crunching metal and causing coolants and energon to bubble beneath the pile. The hot smell of metal decaying rolled over Mercy’s hiding spot, and she threw a predacon body at the bird. It caught it with its beak and immediately ripped it to shreds with claws on its wings. Then it lunged for her. She jerked left and right before snapping her arms around its neck. It gave a shriek of anger, a clawed wing descending on her, shredding her forearm before she could get a good enough grip to twist. She clung on for dear life and tightened her hold, hoping to crush the neck cables and bird into submission. It wreaked havoc on her arm and her grip stopped tightening, energon and coolant spraying across her face and it’s neck. Mercy’s grip became desperate, as cold and hard as a death grip. The big bird fell backwards, it’s talons coming up to inflict yet more damage where its wings were failing. Oblivious, Mercy clung on, and the merciless talons descended on her side and back, ripping her off and sending a severely damaged mech and arm flying. Seconds later, a dusty floor slammed into her and she lay there, unable to tell whether she was on her back or on her front or if she was tumbling. She refreshed her optics, hoping it would stop the world from spinning.

One moment, she was in the holodeck, severely wounded and close to death, about to be pecked to death by a foe she could not locate, and the next she was in a medical bay with the lights dimmed and the hum of electronics surrounding her, beeping her spark signature back at her. She could tell it was her spark signature because it seemed to have an echo somewhere, an echo that wasn’t so much a noise as a state of being, that hummed throughout her entire body and essence, telling her that it had been there all along and  _ how could she have missed it _ ? She jerked up and around, tense and prepared for a fight, her optics falling on the holomech who stood beside the berth, staring down at a datapad as if holding a datapad wasn’t at all strange for a hologram to do.

“What happened?” she demanded, throwing her pedes off the berth and landing on her feet without even waiting for its medical opinion okay.

“You fainted,” it said simply.

Mercy stared at it as if it had just told her she had become Devestator’s new head, and not because of any amount of pride or shock. She had  _ not _ fainted. Refreshing one’s optics could not, at all, be compared to the act of fainting. It was illogical. 

“Your fight with Cutthroat leaves much to be desired, but you proved yourself well against Blot and Rippersnapper and the five predacons. If you learn to master size-shifting, you can perhaps defeat all five Terrorcons together.”

“ _ How _ do you even know about the Terrorcons? They are Decepticons, and this is an alien organic world many miles away from Cybertron. Where did they come from?” 

“I will include a few interactive holographic recreations of the history you have missed out on,” it said aloud. “Meanwhile, you should prepare for your second match with the Terrorcons. This time, you will be facing all five of them.”

Mercy didn’t know what to say. She was overwhelmingly frustrated at the holomech’s lack of satisfactory answers and she had no clue as to how to begin tearing the mech apart in order to figure it out. The only thing she seemed to be able to figure out is that staying on this ship was murder and that she needed to find a way off as soon as possible.

As she walked out of the medbay and turned down the nearest purple, squarish hallway, she had the niggling sensation that she was missing something obvious.


	4. Lesson 3

It had been months after the last incident on the holodeck and the Mentor had tried over and over again to convince her to return to the holodeck without success. After having been torn to shreds by a hologram of Cutthroat, she wasn’t keen on being torn apart by some other monster that the AI happened to fancy creating. As a result, Mercy spent most of her time sorting through the enormous amount of data in her processors that didn’t belong and on ruminating on a way to escape the crashed vessel she didn’t dare to call home.

However, the longer that time passed the more likely she would fail to keep the holomech off her back and the more likely she wouldn’t be able to avoid the so-called ‘training’ it had in store for her.

“I’m working on something that could help me become a better fighter. I just need more time.”

“There is nothing that can replace skill,” said the AI.

“This is nothing that can replace emotion either,” she retorted.

The black mech had been leaning over her shoulder to take a peak her device, but she had quickly covered it up with her shoulder and doorwing while giving him a warning glare. It straightened back up. “I am capable of emotion. I am capable of experiencing both love and hatred.”

Mercy snorted. “Well, I don’t believe love exists and I doubt you can quantify it into data.”

The holomech’s pedes made a strange soft pattering noise on the ground as it moved over to the throne and sat down. It looked strangely less intimidating while sitting down and far more like the teacher it proclaimed to be. “Why do you not believe love exists?”

Mercy found the change to be very disturbing. “Why do you ask?”

“I am curious. You died saving someone you loved dearly and yet you do not believe in love yourself.”

Her optics narrowed. Mercy knew what was happening. This was about to become a bonding moment where her kidnapper would start convincing her to sympathize with it and resulting in her either listening to it further down the road without question or - Primus forbid - start _respecting_ it. “That doesn’t concern you.”

“It does when I need to know it in order to better understand you. Tell me, why do you really not believe in love?”

Mercy’s optics were red-brown slits. There was a long moment before she responded in a low angry tone. “Does love obsess over you and treat you like you’re something special before betraying your family and leaving you without an explanation _when you are just a toddler_ ? Does love stick around only for the sex before ditching your favorite uncle and take away your favorite two younger cousins and poison their minds against your whole family when it was really their fault?” She practically sneered at it. “Does love expect you to do everything that your sister doesn’t want to do just because she’s better at everything else? I’ve heard so many damn things called love that fail to live up to anyone’s expectation and I don’t particularly care for it.”

The silence which followed was unexpectedly awkward and made Mercy almost wish she could snatch those words back up like they were a physical thing and swallow them whole. She returned her attention to her device, annoyed beyond all reason and wanting nothing more than to tear something apart.

“I am sorry.” It almost sounded sincere.

“I don’t _want_ your pity.”

It barely paused before asking. “Why did you die for someone if you did not believe they were capable of loving you?”

The ex-human fiddled with the tool in her hand with no interest in actually using it. “Because she was the only one who came close to embodying the concept of love. She practically breathed the stuff, always dedicating herself to her work and doting over every little thing she did with a passion that she could never put into human interaction. I wasn’t shunned like the rest of the world. She wanted to make this sisterly relationship of ours work and I was hopeful enough at the time to give it a couple of tries. I was honored by her and I felt protective of this person who actively showed me this emotion called love and I couldn’t let that be thrown away in a rainstorm by some dumb driver who didn’t know how to stop his goddamn car.” She was clenching the tool so hard that the gel handle squished into a perfect mold of her servo.

“I am sorry.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” she retorted, surly.

“Is there anyone you regret leaving behind?”

She successfully did not deflate. “Of course there is.” She was less defensive than before as she remembered them with fond memories. “I pushed a lot of people away after I was first betrayed. I wish it hadn’t ended like that, but I’m stubborn and I couldn’t handle being around anyone after that. I _still_ can’t handle being around anyone for long.” She grew quiet. “There’s no telling when they will betray you.”

“Is that why you are planning to leave?”

“Give me a reason to stay.”

“It would _benefit_ you to stay. I can train you to fight the indigenous cybernetic lifeforms and give you a better chance at surviving in the Wilderness.”

Mercy absorbed this thoughtfully. “Cybernetic lifeforms? Were they the original crew?”

“Yes,” it said, “and no.”

“It’s answers like _that_ that give me a hard time trusting you.”

“Is it your habit to avoid a situation that you do not like?” It almost sounded irked. “I can help you _if_ you let me.”

“I do not trust you to help me!” she snapped. “And do not ask me to trust you! I might be able to survive your stupid tests, but don’t expect me to stick around when you just throw me into the burning oil and _expect me to know how to swim_ !”

The AI was quiet for a long moment, which only unnerved Mercy even more. She turned back to her device and reviewed the instructions within her processors, hoping to distract herself from its presence through work.  

“I am sorry,” it said. Mercy looked at it expectantly. “I am sorry that I was not thinking about how you might feel. I want to help you become a better fighter. I am sorry that I do not know how.”

Mercy felt like its confession was awkward, but she had no idea how to deal with an AI that only had two emotions. It was something she needed to study in case she ever needed to compromise for the simple sake of understanding the AI or using the AI’s emotional weaknesses against it. “Don’t apologize. Just do better.” She reminded herself that she needed to refocus her attention on the device before she lost interest in completing it entirely. “Now, let me complete this. I will see you in the holodeck then.”

The holomech nodded stiffly before flickering out of existence. Mercy paused a few kliks before she started to put herself back into the mindset for work. When the last piece clicked into place, she transcanned the device and incorporated it into her rootmode design, while shoving the device in subspace so it was easier to integrate into her person. She tested it briefly, world turning temporarily grey. It wasn’t perfect and she made her final adjustments on her way down to the holodeck. The white walls greeted her as she stepped through, but they changed quickly to a familiar purple-blue color that had taken over the whole base.

“I’m ready.”

Instantly, the holodeck transformed into the arena again, with the sudden silence cheering crowds deafening her almost instantly. She tapped her audial sensor, suddenly disappointed that she couldn’t waggle a finger in her ear canal anymore.

“ _The training simulation begins now_ .”

She heard the dull noise of portcullises rising within the walls of the arena, followed by the sound of massive creatures three times her mass thumping out of their hiding spots temporarily drowning out the roar of the crowd. They towered over her measly fourteen feet at an average of thirty-four feet, with seven heads connected to five different bodies, one of which flew through the air above her with the intent of making a repeat performance.

“ _You must defeat them in order to pass the test._ ” The AI told her. “ _Using your device to avoid them will not further your training._ ”

“I suspected as much,” she said, ignoring the hulking targets which lumbered forward towards her position. Her doorwings tracked the flying monster more warily. “You said one of my ancestors was The Shifter, who I am guessing is Amalgamous Prime?”

“ _Correct._ ”

“And since I don’t look like I’m a Vehicon, I am guessing that I have some of his programming?”

“ _Correct. You are capable of sizeshifting and mass-shifting depending on the amount of space you have in your subspace. This also makes it easier to upgrade your systems — but you already knew that._ ”

“Yup, yup, yup,” she said.

“ _If Lesson 2 was not incomplete, I would say that Lesson 3 was already completed. In any case, you must utilize your transformation cog in order to complete Lesson 2.”_

Mercy ignored it and shifted out of phase with the rest of the world just as Cutthroat swooped low and racked its claws through the spot she had been. It roared, robbed of its prey by metaphysical forces and greatly displeased with that. She phased back into reality when it was safely airborne and turned her attention to her attack, racing up to the nearest monster and bring her dirk into a seam in the frog’s side. The attack was a test of the frog’s reflexes, and she shifted out of phase when the arm swiped through her legs.

“ _You are using a unique form of phasing technology. It is not a traditional or realistic phasing technology, is it? If it were, I would still be able to pick you up on a security feed. Instead, I cannot see you visually or on any of my other scanners.”_

“Don’t think too hard,” she muttered to herself.

::You are in the Shadow Zone.::

The tone of its voice caused her to pause and she shifted out of phase into the grey world, the monster lumbering uselessly around her and unable to see or hear her and giving her a respite to think. The AI had sounded different and impressed. It was not an emotion that was similar to either love or hatred and the voice itself didn’t traditionally belong to the Mentor either.

::I am impressed. You can communicate to this ‘ship’ via this communication link. Consider this an exercise in using the communication line.::

::Great…:: she said, noting the silent quotations around the word ‘ship’. ::Who are you?::

::A friend. Or a friend of a friend. You’ll be able to remember me when you have completed Lesson 4. Until then, **hasta la vista** or whatever you organics say **.** ::

It occurred to Mercy for the very first time that she was no longer speaking English, but any more thoughts of the matter were dismissed when The Mentor announced over the intercomms, “ _You cannot complete Lesson 2 in the Shadow Zone. You will eventually have to come back to reality in order to fight the Terrorcons.”_

::In the meantime, I can assess the situation and pinpoint vital spots in their armor which I can tag whenever I decide to temporarily leave my safe haven. My small size and probable speed will win me a victory without the need to over stress myself.:: It occurred to her that she hadn’t ever thought of her energon levels either, but a quick ping across her neural net informed her that she at one hundred percent even though she honestly shouldn’t have been. Just another mystery to add to the list. ::This match may take forever but the Terrorcon’s slow speed will prevent them from getting away and their gestalt bond will prevent them from straying too far from each other.::

::Remarkable,:: said the decidedly male voice over the comm lines. ::Ingenius. You are very brilliant for a pretender. I cannot wait to meet you face-to-face.::

“ _Your assessment of the enemy is correct. Once you have defeated them, I will most assuredly move you on to lesson 4.”_

Mercy nodded, unsure what to do with the praise from this stranger and the inability of the Mentor to speak through comms. ::Okay. Give me some time.::

::Of course,::

The AI did not respond over the speakers and Mercy assumed that was because she was talking to some aspect of it over the comm lines. She quickly turned her attention from the voices to analyzing the five hulking monsters around her. They were insane, lumbering robots in the form of five different giant monsters. There was no reason behind their actions beyond a desire to kill and destroy. She faintly remembered fighting enemies like them, a very long time ago. Enemies who had no real reason to destroy except that it made them feel powerful.

Mercy felt disgusted, her lips twitching into a sneer before she suppressed it. Mercy had never been a fan of letting her emotions get the best of her, and even less so now that she was a precise piece of engineering. Even before she had become a machine, Mercy Ferris had never _ever_ panicked. Fear and anger had been tools she had used to sharpen her focus onto things that were important, like pushing aside her twin to save her life. Like an instinctual sharpness that took over her mind and tensed up her whole body, her new battle programming activated and narrowed her vision onto what was most important.

She needed a larger bladed weapon. Her battle programming immediately scanned her dirk and immediately incorporated it into her current design, transforming her left servo and lower arm into a massive sword with a deep blood channel and a serrated, energon re-enforced edge that sung as she swiped the blade through still air.

She needed to be bigger or smaller. Her battle programming immediately searched through memories which referenced size-shifting and immediately began pulling out metal from her subspace and adding that to her protoform. She was smaller and thicker now, having dropped from a height of fourteen feet to a height of seven. The Terrorcons were gestalts compared to her, towering at an average of thirty-four feet.

She needed a ranged weapon. Shoulder cannons slowly began to form on her back as her battle programming skimmed references to large, powerful and effective machines that could puncture an energy absorption field and rip through Cybertronian alloy at high velocity. It settled on the Rail-Gun from her memories of Michael Bay’s _Revenge of the Fallen_ . The electromagnetic field would not overly affect her energon-run cortex unless it was on for extended periods of time, which it only took a few astroseconds to fire the spike-covered balls it used for ammunition. Her battle programming was already rerouting her self-repair systems to build the ammunition and create a channel to transport it from her tanks and into her shoulder cannons. Occasionally as she moved, she felt the stiff cord which extended from her lower back and into the bade of the shoulder canon. As her battle programming worked, however, armor began to cover those cords and pinned them to her body.

She had all of the time in the world to make these modifications and then some, and her battle programming was more than happy to work on her transcan and make it more battle ready. Anti-gravity jets were added beneath the fins and she tested the transcan, using it to give her an aerial view of the holodeck. The flying whale transformer tested the boundaries of the holodeck, but no matter how high she climbed, the ground failed to recede beneath after a certain distance. This observation was carefully cataloged and filed away, either to be purged (aka forgotten) at a later date or to be remembered during the next battle. Mercy wasn’t paying enough attention to what her battle programming was doing to make a comment on it, as she had no idea or interest in breaking her concentration.

With her shoulder cannons fully working, her sword working, and her aerial view of the bored Terrorcons giving her an advantage the AI wouldn’t know about, she landed and shifted back into phase, turning her new fire power on Cutthroat.

The aerial Terrorcon was diving at the dead predacon bodies when it was struck in the side, the spike ball tearing through its wing and rendering the limb useless. Cutthroat’s expression was about to get angrier when was hit by another spike-ball ramming into the side of its head and ripped it off. It landed on the pile of corpses, prostrate.

Mercy phased out before any of the other Terrorcons could register her, and she quickly moved around to slash at the blue frog’s legs with her five foot long blades. The frog took an unsteady step and then fell. Sensing defeat, the frog reacted to Mercy’s pedes on it and twisted in an attempt to crush her beneath its weight. Adjusting to the rapidly shifting ground beneath her, Mercy raced up its back and side and slammed her blade into the back of its neck, removing it from the fight.

Next, she turned her attack on the land shark, taking out its legs and leaping onto its neck to slam the knife home in its neck. The black and white doorwinger phased out of shift just as a ton of rocks and debris battered the ground behind where she had stood. The white two-headed dragon didn’t seem to care that it might have almost damaged the land-shark, but that merely meant that Mercy could not hope to use them as a means to force Hun-garr to hesitate. She did wait for Hun-garr to collect its bearings, ignoring the soft echo of her pedes against the ground as she raced up Hun-garr’s frame while still in the Shadow Zone.

The Terrorcon sensed the small pedes scaling his hide and turned to bite at the area, catching only air in its mouth. For a single still moment, Mercy had one head behind her, where she had been running a moment before, and the second head looking straight at her with its maw half open and ready to bite. It snapped forward, teeth coming down hard on her while her sword drove into the back of his throat, slicing through the middle of a backstrut and cutting off the power behind that bite. She started to fall from its mouth even as the second head came around to bite, and she felt teeth connect as she adjusted the angle on her sword and drove the point into Hun-garr’s optic. It clamped down around her middle and tried to crush her stomach, but her sword kept going through the eye and down the side of its face, severing its jaw’s joint. The functioning side of its face managed to clamp down on her heavy hip armor, but another slice of the blade cleaved it’s head in two and cut the power lines to the jaw.

For a heartbeat, Mercy could see the details of its optical orb, the shattered protective glass spinning through the air, and the massive power generator which served at the alternate mode’s brain. Then, it exploded, shrapnel and energy flying in all directions and catching her in the face before she could raise an arm and a blade to block it.

She landed roughly on the ground and immediately shifted out of phase, giving her an extra astrosecond to check her injuries. The cuts were shallow, with a few of them leaking energon, which was good because her face was the most unprotected part of her body. She quickly picked herself up, not wanting to wait any longer than was necessary, and turning her attention to her last target - who just so happened to have stepped on the spot she was occupying in the Shadow Zone. It phased through her body, but the realization that he could have killed her during her moment of hesitation reminded her that - regardless of the boon the phase shifter was - it also prevented her from learning _the proper way_ from little mistakes like this.

It took her a moment to realize that _this_ was the programming in her talking, and she shuddered. She wasn’t sure she wanted a programming that was this ruthless inside of her head and dictating what she did. It could get her killed, or it could get someone else killed. And that was unacceptable to Mercy Ferris.

Her battle programming took over again and she immediately looked at Hun-garr. The two-headed white and purple dragon had landed on the ground without her noticing, which was wrong. She scolded at herself for getting distraction and immediately forced herself to her pedes and moved out of Sinnertwin’s phase-shadow. In another beat, she was scaling his armor, shifting out of phase, and nailing the base of one of the neck, severing the strut. Sinnertwin roared angrily and twisted in on itself to grab her, but she only had one head to deal with and that one was headed right into the path of her blade. She nicked it in the optic and spun out of harms way, the heavier armor on Sinnertwin’s head protecting it from damage. Gravity threatened to drag her back down the Terrorcon’s neck but she grabbed hold of the mech’s wound and used it to stand in between the two dragon heads. Sinnertwin’s pain made his rage all the more palpable, and he deliberately fell towards his side and rolled, forcing her to release her grip before he rolled back to his pedes. In a fit of pain-enduced rage, his remaining head turned on its brother and ripped it the rest of the way off. Now, one headed and severely lopsided, Sinnertwin turned towards its adversary and charged, hoping simply to crush her beneath its pedes.

Mercy was disoriented from the spin but she got to her feet quickly, only for a flying head and attached neck to land nearby and startle her. Her optics whipped around to take in the charging Sinnertwin, but this time she didn’t phase out. Instead, she threw herself underneath the Terrorcon’s body and lay still while its tail swished overhead. Sinnertwin was forced to slow down, and turn, landing on its chest and using its arms to whip around faster. Burning red optics narrowed down into slits locked onto their target as the yellow monstrosity hissed, snarled and lunged across the arena. Mercy was on her pedes before it could reacquire forward momentum, and she turned her rail-gun shoulder cannons on the two-headed dragon, firing both spike-balls at it’s head. It came to a dead stop as one optic was brutally punctured and energon began seeping out of it, as the second spike ball impacted with its neck and stayed there, temporarily stuck, before the dead stop and gravity caused it to fall out. Sinnertwin turned its one good optic on Mercy, burning hatred, hunger and rage lighting it up like a dark fire.

_Rhythm felt it. The sudden stillness in her spark as one of her gestalt team was extinguished. Her focus went from the flora in front of her to the frozen world around her. She heard the deep sound, rumbling from the Earth and rapidly traveling up the sensitive shock absorbers in her legs. She was moving in the next instant, hopefully closer to the noise. Then, a giant yellow monster cut her off. The two heads crashed into her shoulders, sinking into the armor with its reinforced bite as its arms tore into her sides, gripped them, and pulled them… she could feel her optics go wide with realization as she turned and twisted, catching a glimpse of those burning red optics that glowed with hunger, rage and hatred… the claws tore into her…_

It took Mercy an astrosecond longer than it should have to realize that those teeth were within snapping range and she took a step back before remembering she had a sword. Her battle programming snapped back into place, drenching her burning and frantic thoughts in cold, and she stepped forward into the waiting maw and slammed the sword into the back of the dragon’s throat, severing the unprotected strut. When she finally pushed open the limp mouth that was clamped down around her arm and upper torso, she looked over the scene and stared dispassionately at the frozen bodies. It reminded her of the first repair bay she had woken up in and the bodies of four others that had been laid out on the medical berths. The ones that she had thought looked like her friends. They were important, somehow. Special. More special than a simple pretender shell.

 _Transtector_ , she corrected herself. Those bodies were more important than a simple transtector, like they used to be able to walk and talk on their own and had their own sparks before she had been selected to join with her transtector and become its spark.

“Well done.” Because the AI’s voice wasn’t projecting across the arena, it startled her. The stoic AI did not react to the jump she made and she berated herself for not paying attention while at the same time wondering why she was berating herself. “You have performed marvelously and as I promised you will be moved on to Lesson 4. In the meantime, I would suggest you recharge.”

Mercy nodded, wanting to leave this place as quickly as she could for a reason she could not explain. “Right.” She hesitated, however, forcing aside the desire to flee so she could answer the question on her mind. “Mentor, could you please explain to me why I am still at one hundred percent power?”

“You are equipped with an EAS field. This is standard for all Terrans due to the lack of raw energon on Theresa and due to the lack of technology necessary to create and process energy into energon. It was created long ago and is coded into the standard Vehicon.”

Mercy nodded slowly. “Okay. So, where am I getting the energy from?”

“From the ‘ship’.”

“Where does the ship get its energy from?”

The AI stared at her blankly for a very long moment before it shrugged and turned away. Mercy couldn’t help the scowl which appeared on her face, knowing she should press the AI for more answers but also knowing that the AI would only tell her what it had been programmed to say. As a direct source of information, it was useless to her. So, instead, she turned away and made her way back to the throne room, hoping the cool air and blue light from the surface of the ocean would cool her head.

When she walked through the doors, she realized that she had apparently returned to her original height without her knowing. Could the AI have done something to her while she had been knocked out? What exactly knocked her out? She never could remember her head hitting the ground or even her head hitting anything. She just ended up lying down on the medical berth. And what about the doors? When did they stop being a death trap waiting to close on her and open up like normal futuristic doors?  

Her gaze fell to the armrest of the throne and the curious numbers and words scrolling across the screen.

_Analyzing threat… Analyzing threat… Threat analysis in progress…_   
_Battle computer integration… 34.782 percent…_   
_Firewall at 72.419 percent integrity…_   
_Analyzing threat… Analyzing threat… Threat analysis in progress…_


End file.
